An Easy Death Read online

  “You shoot a lot of people?” she asked. She had a hoarse little voice.

  “That’s my job.”

  “You did good, Gunnie Rose. Thanks.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Sorry about your friends.”

  I nodded. Didn’t want to talk about it.

  She leaned sideways and hugged me awkwardly. “My name’s Jael,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you knew it. What’s yours?”

  “Lizbeth,” I said.

  “Gunnie.” She squeezed a little and let go of me to return to her blanket, laid safely by her mom’s. I saw Ruth’s eyes glint in the firelight. She’d been keeping an eye on her chick. Good. I remembered the girl’s name from the Bible. Hadn’t Jael killed a man with a tent peg or something? Her parents must have thought she was a pretty fierce kid—or else they wanted her to be.

  The next day proved she was.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A dog pack attacked us in the afternoon, and they got Jael. They’d followed behind us, where we weren’t keeping as sharp a watch—I can face in only one direction at a time—and since Jael was lagging behind, they seized her.

  I heard the scream and I wheeled. I’d been carrying one of the Colts in my waistband, since my gun belt was broken. I pulled it now, ready to kill. The grown-ups had already waded in, kicking and screaming. They hadn’t shot because that wasn’t their instinct. If they didn’t move, I’d get them as well.

  “Stand back!” I yelled with every bit of voice I had, and for a miracle, they did.

  Jael was snarling while she struggled, fighting for all she was worth. I ran, took my stance, and shot the lead dog, a large yellow hound with its jaws clamped on her left arm. It dropped dead. Another large dog, which had seized hold of her skirt, let go and backed off a little, growling with bared teeth. The pack was startled, but that would last only a moment. I grabbed Jael up and shot another big dog, this one coming at me. The dogs scattered, but not far enough.

  I began backing up, little by little, keeping my eyes on them. They were bunched together, which made it easier.

  “Fire,” I shouted when I’d judged Jael and I were well clear.

  Both brothers were ready, Jacob with the bandit gun I’d loaned him, Jeremiah with the bandit rifle. Jacob killed a third dog, wounded a fourth. Jeremiah shot three more, which died quickly. Ruth and Martha, and even the children, were pelting the dogs with rocks.

  “Move away,” I yelled, struggling to hold up the bleeding girl and keep a hand free to shoot. “Keep backing away.” I fired into the mass of dogs once more, and a high, keening yelp told me I’d hit another one, maybe more than one.

  I could tell the instant the pack decided free food was better than food you had to fight for. They descended on the corpses of their pack buddies. The ones left out of that feast attacked the wounded dogs. It was over pretty quick.

  We made haste to get away. Jael’s father took her from me. “Don’t run,” I called. Running prey would be exciting enough to lure some of the dogs away from their meal.

  Jael was trying not to make noise, but she was bleeding pretty badly. The pain must have been considerable. She was gulping for air, and her face was streaked with tears and snot and some blood. Her mother was right beside her dad, just waiting to clean up the girl, her own face full of fear.

  Finally we were out of sight of the pack. The dogs had not pursued us, at least so far. We had to stop for a moment.

  “Do you have any spirits?” I asked the brothers, and Jacob whipped out a flask.

  His wife gave him a sharp look. He’d pay for that later. Right now what counted was cleaning the bites, especially the deep one on her arm. Jael’s dad put her on the ground and I knelt beside her.

  “Pour it over,” I said, gripping Jael’s wrist and shoulder and extending her arm as if it weren’t attached to a girl. Jacob took a deep breath and twisted open the cap. He tilted the flask to pour. He knew full well how painful this would be. Sure enough, despite her best intentions, Jael howled and struggled, without meaning to. Her mother seized her around the body to hold her still. I wanted alcohol to get in every single wound.

  Jael had some other bites that had broken the skin, and we took care of those, too. The level in the flask was getting low. Jael reeked of whiskey.

  “There’s blood running down her leg,” Jeremiah said. “Daughter, is your leg hurt?”

  “Raise her skirt up,” I said, and after a second’s hesitation he did so. This revealed a tear in the flesh, bleeding freely. At least it seemed to have been inflicted by one of the smaller dogs.

  “Shit,” I said, and everyone around me jumped. “Jael, this is the last one. Brace yourself, girl. I don’t want you to lose an arm or a leg or anything else.” I used the last of the liquor on this bite. I hoped all the infection had been carried out of her in the flowing blood.

  I also hoped none of the dogs were rabid, or we’d lose Jael in a terrible way. Ruth was ready to bandage the leg and the arm with a shirt she’d already torn into rough strips. She did a good job getting the bandages snug enough to stop the bleeding, but not so tight as to cut off the girl’s circulation.

  Jael was hiccuping by now, making a huge effort to calm herself. The girl was tough.

  “We got to walk. The farther away we get, the better,” I said, screwing the top back on the flask and returning it to Jacob, though there were only a few drops left inside. “We have to take turns carrying her, because that leg wound is gonna keep bleeding if she walks on it today. Maybe tomorrow, too.”

  We set off again, moving fast, with no talk.

  If we were lucky, the pack would not track us. Maybe they would be full and content. Maybe they’d find easier prey. A few people in Segundo Mexia had dogs as pets, and they seemed good animals. But out in the wild they were killers.

  Jeremiah carried Jael first, which was natural. Then he handed the girl over to her mother, who lasted longer than I thought she would. Then her uncle took charge of her, and then Martha.

  I had her last. Jael wasn’t as big as me, but she wasn’t so far from it, either. I’m a short woman. The girl’s legs dangled down around mine and banged me. But at least we kept moving, and I could spell someone else so they could rest.

  Standing Still had told me there was water in the abandoned town I’d seen before from the west, though never up close. I’d been looking to spy it for the past hour. Finally, about five o’clock, we spotted it in the distance.

  Now I knew exactly where we were. We were closer to Corbin than I’d figured. We’d have to stop here for the night. We couldn’t keep on carrying Jael. She had to lie down and sleep, and so did we.

  The empty town was just as spooky close up as it had been far away. The best shelter was in the old general store, which had three walls up, and half a fourth. Jeremiah, Jacob, and I pulled some boards from other buildings to blockade that gap; it wasn’t a very good barrier, but it would slow something down long enough for me to shoot. At least there was plenty of dry wood lying around to fuel a fire on the dirt floor, and I asked Martha to start one right away. It wasn’t going to be dark for hours yet, but we needed to eat something hot. I left that in the hands of the adult women.

  Jeremiah agreed to leave Jael’s side only if someone sat by her. That turned out to be me. The pump was right outside the general store, and it still worked. I found an old bucket, plugged the hole in it with a rock and some cloth, and brought in water to wash Jael. If she was anything like me, she’d feel better when the dried blood was gone.

  Jeremiah had gotten a rabbit earlier in the day, and I’d gotten another. Not much for as many people as we had. Better than nothing. Martha skinned them and cut them up, and she put them in the one pot we’d kept, along with all the canned vegetables we had; again, not much, because we’d left most of that heavy stuff under the wagon. We added some water and put the pot on the little fire, and let everything cook together for a good long while. I checked to make sure the wind was blowing north, so the pack
wouldn’t catch the cooking smell.

  When the pot had cooled enough, the little ones gathered round with their spoons first. I didn’t think that was the normal way of things in farm families, where the adults did all the physical work and thus got more food, but tonight that was the way of it here. The five of us got what was left.

  Everyone got something to eat; no one got enough.

  I watched to make sure Jael took a few bites, but she went back to sleep in the middle of swallowing. We kept a sharper watch that night, fearing the return of the pack.

  I hoped we’d reach Corbin in two days. Jael tried to walk, and she managed during the morning, but by noon she was stumbling. After I laid my hand on her forehead, I was careful not to look at her mother. Jael felt warm.

  When it was my turn to carry her, Jael wanted to talk. “Have you been outside of Texoma, Lizbeth?”

  I couldn’t spare a lot of breath, but I was relieved to hear her voice. She’d been silent for a long while. “Yeah. I’ve been to New America, where we’re going. In fact, I think we’re in New America now. And I’ve been in Mexico, on a job.”

  “What about the HRE?”

  “Haven’t been in the Holy Russian Empire.”

  “Do you think the emperor wears a crown all the time? What about his sisters?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. Those crowns have to be heavy. They’d give you a headache.” Maybe as bad as mine, though it was better than the day before.

  “Are they all married?”

  “The grand duchesses? I think so.” I didn’t pay too much attention to stories about the Russian royal family. After all, Tsar Alexei lived all the way west by the ocean, in San Diego, and it wasn’t likely I’d ever see him, even if I wanted to. And his sisters were all married and scattered around.

  “I bet they had beautiful weddings. I bet they’re really pretty.”

  Truth was, after the exile Alexei’s dad, Nicholas, had been so anxious to marry off his daughters to cement their place in the world, the joke was he’d tossed them out of the boat like chum.

  I had no opinion of the Russian royal family, and I didn’t care that they’d carved their own empire out of part of the former United States. The beef I had with them was that they’d brought the grigoris with them. They were bad and dangerous.

  “Why do they call ’em grigoris?” Jael asked, as if she’d read my thoughts.

  “Because of their boss, a magician named Grigori Rasputin. He’s some kind of priest or holy man, too. Not Catholic.”

  “Hmmm.”

  I thought she slept for a minute on my shoulder.

  “Are they all bad?” she said, her voice drowsy.

  “Some of ’em are.” I knew that for certain.

  “Lizbeth. I feel better.”

  “That’s good.”

  This time she really slept. Her mother took over carrying her, and I strode off feeling lighter. We’d all be glad to stop for the night.

  I wondered if that was what little girls dreamed of now. Seeing the Russian grand duchesses, in crowns and long dresses, their diamonds glittering. Had they managed to escape with enough diamonds to glitter? Were they happy, strewn around and married to foreigners?

  Was Alexei even strong enough to keep his head up if he wore a crown? When the royal family had escaped the Red Army, the newspapers had reported that Alexei had some real serious disease. Supposedly, that was how the grigoris had gotten their hold on the royals; they’d kept the tsarevitch alive.

  I dismissed the royals from my mind. And I never wanted to think about grigoris. I had enough to worry about, right in front of me.

  Jael slept through that night. We had to carry her the next day too and ended up making a travois for her out of a blanket and two poles. Dragging it was sure easier than toting her.

  We didn’t encounter any more dogs or Indians or bandits, but we got really hungry. We’d used up most of the food. Since we’d rationed it, we had some water on hand.

  The third day after the dog attack, Jael could walk on her own, and we made better time. That day, early in the afternoon, we walked into Corbin.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Corbin was a busy town, better situated than Segundo Mexia. There were maybe three thousand souls. If the oldest brother—the one who’d financed this trip—hadn’t given up and gone home, I knew where he’d be staying. Sure enough, when we walked up to Broadhurst’s Boardinghouse for Gentlemen and Ladies, there was the eldest brother, Joshua, sitting on the front porch with a glass of tea.

  Joshua Beekins was tall and broad and hearty, and he was really, really glad to see his family. He hugged everyone many times, he bellowed all their names, he prayed out loud in gratitude for their deliverance.

  After there’d been a lot of greeting and more praying, I had to bring myself to his attention.

  “You’re . . . ?” He looked at my outstretched hand, puzzled.

  “I’m the surviving member of the crew that got them here,” I said a little sharply, because I was swaying on my feet with weariness. And I could not push back my grief any longer.

  Joshua’d dealt with Martin, so he asked about him first.

  “He’s dead,” I said. I didn’t have a lot of energy to waste, so I couldn’t dress it up any. “Bandits. Who also killed the two kids.”

  Joshua hadn’t counted the children present, and he was seriously shocked. But he stayed on track. “Tarken is gone? Galilee?”

  “Yes, all gone.”

  “You lived and got them here.” He seemed to think that was marvelous. As in, literally something to marvel at.

  “My job. I loaned your brothers two of the bandit guns, but I’m willing to leave them, for protection. And of course, the pay owed.”

  You could see Joshua thinking of a reason to dispute this, since the other three crew members were dead. But he really couldn’t. It was just a habit, looking for a loophole. Joshua was gracious enough about counting out the money owed.

  I collected all my firearms from the various places and packs they’d been stowed. I’d have to buy a bag to hold them and the extra canteens. They’d go home with me.

  The two families were telling Joshua about the bandit attack, and the dog attack, and the encounter with the Indians, which had gotten much more exciting in the retelling. I was ready for a bed, but I wasn’t staying at this boardinghouse. Too much talking.

  “You could go back to Wheatlands with us,” Joshua said when I told him good-bye. He looked at me with frank appraisal. “There are lots of men there who need a good wife.”

  “Then I hope they find one,” I said. I nodded and drifted away from the group, in which everyone was now all happy . . . and talking and planning. It would be different once the excitement of the reunion eased down. Soon they’d realize that now they had the leisure to mourn for the ones they’d lost.

  The farm families had rejoined their lives. After a while this long nightmare of a trip would just be a part of the time they’d stepped outside the boundaries. Except maybe Jael.

  A little up the street was Mother Phillips’s Boardinghouse. I’d stayed there before, with Tarken on the last trip. I knew it was clean, and I wanted cleanliness more than anything. I reeked. I asked Edna Phillips if she had a room and food. She looked at me and I saw she’d already heard about Tarken. Amazing.

  “I have a room, right by the bathroom,” she said. “You go up and get in the bathtub. I’ll bring you up some food.”

  “Thanks. Doesn’t make any difference what it is.”

  “Do you want company?” she asked in her neutral voice.

  “Not even a little bit,” I said. The difference between Broadhurst’s Boardinghouse for Gentlemen and Ladies and Mother Phillips’s was that Edna would let whores visit if they were done and out within the hour and they were quiet. Otherwise, you never got to stay there again. “I want the bath, and the food, and a bed. And if you can wash these clothes I got on, overnight, I’ll pay extra.” This was a huge treat, and one I thought I
deserved.

  I could afford it because I’d gotten everyone’s pay. I pushed that thought away and went up the stairs. They seemed to have gotten steeper since the last time I was here. It took me three tries to unlock my room door. I pulled off my boots, and the smell disgusted me. That was the only thing stronger than my exhaustion. I decided to wash them out later, in the room sink. They’d have time to dry overnight.

  This time of day, the bathroom in the hall was open and empty, and the hot water was working. I ran a tubful and lowered myself into the water.

  I groaned at the sensation of the heat on my aching, abused body. I looked at it through the water. I was a black-and-blue person now, with a few white patches. I closed my eyes. I felt worse when I saw it.

  For a few minutes I just let the heat seep into my sore muscles. A faint breeze came in the open window, and it smelled of good things. There were voices, but they weren’t talking to me and they seemed far away. And it was so much quieter . . . finally. The relief of being alone was overwhelming.

  I began to cry.

  As I wept, I lathered up with the hotel soap. It did not have much of a sweet scent, but it got me clean, and clean smelled good. I’d hated my own smell for days. There was some shampoo, and though I didn’t have much hair to wash, I used it. I massaged my scalp with the pads of my fingers, slowly, gingerly. I found the lump at the side of my head. It felt smaller. My ear was scabbed over. After a minute’s cautious washing, it wasn’t bloody anymore.

  And still I cried. I could not stop. I put my arms around my knees.

  Gradually I stopped. The water was dirty and cool. I didn’t want to sit in it. I pulled the plug so it could drain. Then I ran a little more hot water to rinse myself off. I wasn’t usually wasteful like this, but no one had knocked on the door to ask me to vacate the room.

  I felt like a new woman as I patted myself dry with the scratchy hotel towel. I’d done the crying, and standing clean and whole and unburdened was simply great. Keeping back from the window, I turned in a circle, my arms held out, so the air could feel how clean I was. And then I staggered. I was weak with wanting sleep.